Ties That Bind
by jean-amanda
Summary: After Lecter eludes his best men in Florence, Mason Verger takes his problem to a scarred and embittered Will Graham.


_Prologue_

In the days after Jack Crawford's death, Will was sent two letters. The first was FedExed from a Chicago address, and Will tore into it on his front porch, the tab of cardboard from the envelope landing by his feet.

Alana Bloom's handwriting was very legible, for a psychiatrist. She sent her regards on letterhead and broke the bad news. _Heart attack, and it looks like he passed in his sleep._ The brevity of the letter betrayed how long and hard she labored to craft it, as did as her tidy upper loops that slanted far to the right.

She made no mention of the havoc Hannibal Lecter wreaked in Florence only a week earlier.

_I hope this finds you well. _The Florida morning light was orange and blinding, even from the shade of the porch. Will thought about bringing the letter to his nose, but he knew he would smell ink from Alana's pen and the sharpness of paper. No hint of her to chase._ I won't push, but I'll save a seat for you at the funeral. _Will checked the date. The funeral was in three days.

He went back inside, tapping the edge of the paper against his thigh. One of the dogs wandered out when Will opened the door for the FedEx delivery, and he abandoned his stick and obeyed at the sound of Will's distracted whistle.

The second letter was intercepted before it ever reached Will's mailbox, forwarded to the Verger farm in Maryland, and examined by staff with the same level of forensic scrutiny they used for all correspondence from Lecter. They found a tiny smudge on the lower corner that turned out to be oil from his skin and a partial print from a left index finger that was good enough for confirmation but wouldn't hold up in a court of law it would never see.

Mason Verger's heart rate increased when Cordell projected the letter's contents onto a large holographic screen above his bed. The amount of enlargement required for Mason's easy reading made each individual word the size of someone's palm.

_My dear Will,_

My sincere condolences. In the coming weeks, the clarity of anger and abandonment will serve you better than the rose tint of earlier memories. Your real father seemed only a little elevated in your regard, left behind to rot in Louisiana. Grant Uncle Jack the same lack of nostalgia.

I will not call on you, Will, so there is no need to use me as motivation to crawl deeper into your chosen bottle. I would have you honored for the man you were, not what you have become. When there is occasion, please return the courtesy and reject any offers to root me out that interested parties may extend.

Jack's death preempts another anniversary. How is the former Mrs. Graham? I heard you kept the beach house in the divorce. That was very kind of Molly. I imagine you reading this with the tide swirling around your ankles, but likely you are inside and surrounded by the newest iteration of your pack. Do this one thing: test the water. Not for me—for you, and for your dogs. Only the seagulls will bear witness, and they do not have standards of vanity, nor will they mind the smell.

Yours,  
H. Lecter, MD

"Cordell," Mason called some five minutes after he'd read the letter. Mason's lipless mouth seemed open in a perpetual grimace, and forcing words past it took a certain undulation of his tongue that mimicked the motions of his eel in its tank, curving and fluttering between rocks.

Cordell appeared at his bedside. "The plane can be in Florida by six-thirty."

They both had to wait through the hiss and clack of Mason's respirator as it filled his lungs. "Do I look like I need a _tan_?" he mocked. "Or have you forgotten how to read?" Lecter's subtle warning to Graham about offers would have made Mason smile were he able to.

"No, Mr. Verger. I see."

Mason minimized the letter so it was only on half the screen; his eyes tracked market changes and talking heads on a D.C. news program, but they kept drifting back to the even copperplate of Lecter's handwriting.

"We get to him before the FBI does. He doesn't get a phone call without us knowing."

"Of course."

Mason didn't bother to dismiss him. Cordell backed away to resume his usual mid-day duties, attending to Mason's lunch and the host of drugs that preceded it. The letter was expanded so it filled the entire screen again.

In Florida, Will pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and squeezed his eyes shut against an oncoming migraine.

Thirty thousand feet in the air, Hannibal Lecter lifted the plastic shield on the plane's window with one finger and peered into the thick clouds above the Atlantic.

* * *

This is heavily influenced by the novel "Hannibal." In many ways it's my attempt to adapt the book to Fuller's canon, presuming he never gets the rights to Clarice Starling and gives Will Graham a (subjectively) better end than the one he received in the books. I love Clarice, but I think in the Fullerverse Will makes a decent proxy for her, and on top of that, sparing her from the fate Thomas Harris wrote was an appealing prospect. There shouldn't be issues for those who haven't read the books, I don't think, but fans will notice my homage in a heartbeat.

Necessarily the timeline here is a little wonky. For my purposes, "Red Dragon" happens circa season four, "The Silence of the Lambs"-sans Clarice circa season six, and "Hannibal" in some weird, amorphous era a few years after that. I started the story in early season two, well before we ever saw Mason and Margot on screen.

Thanks to TheLCM for being as enthusiastic about the Harris canon as I am, for helping me finagle the plot in many thoughtful emails, and for generally being swell. More thanks go to Randstad, its in the water, and what I'm sure will be an even bigger crew as this thing evolves.

I can't promise how quickly updates will come, though I have already finished the first act of chapter one. I feel like Bryan is gonna Joss me re: Mason, so I'm treading lightly and waiting for spoilers.


End file.
